CHAPTER III.
Who Were the Ancestors of the Palas?
The study of the ancestors of our present-day Amerind has occupied the time and attention of many scholars with small results. Only when the ethnologist and antiquarian began to take due cognizance of language, tradition, and the physical configuration of skull and body did he begin to make due progress.
Dr. A. L. Kroeber, of the University of California, affirms that the Palas belong to what is now generally called the Uto-Aztecan stock. Distant relatives of theirs are the Shoshones, of Idaho and Wyoming; so the general name "Shoshonean" was long since applied to them. But more recent investigations have shown that the great group of Shoshonean tribes are only a part of a still larger family, all related among each other, as shown by their speech. In this grand assemblage belong the Utes of Utah, the famous snake-dancing Hopi, and the pastoral Pimas, of Arizona, the Yaki of Sonora, and, most important of all, the Aztecs of Mexico. The name Uto-Aztecan, therefore, is rapidly coming into use as the most appropriate for this family, which was and still is numerically the largest and historically the most important on the American continent. Whether the Aztecs are an offshoot from the less civilized tribes in the United States, or the reverse, is not yet determined.
Interior of Pala Chapel Before the Restoration, Showing the Old Indian Mural Decorations.
An Old San Luis Rey Mission Indian.
Statue of San Luis Rey Which Stands at the Right of the Altar in Pala Chapel.